The new corporate centre opened recently by HSBC Malta was a sign that it was “investing for growth”, CEO Andrew Beane told the Times of Malta, stressing that talk of bank leaving Malta was “just speculation”.
A story on Bloomberg last April had indicated that Malta was among the smaller operations that HSBC Holdings was considering pulling out of.
At the holding group’s strategy meeting in Hong Kong last month, however, no jurisdictions were specifically mentioned. However, group CEO John Flint stressed that the focus would be on re-deploying capital in to high-return businesses, with a target return on equity of 11 per cent.
HSBC Malta last year reported and RoE of 11.7 per cent.
Asked whether the bank in Malta was passively for sale – whether it would accept an offer if one were made – Mr Beane evaded the direct question, saying that while everyone preferred certainty about the future, the thing to stress was that the board of the local bank had no information which required it to make any sort of announcement.
Mr Beane said that the bank had been through a period of change but that it was going back into growth mode.